Ambition and Itinerary

The past few weeks have been fucking killing me at work.  It’s the busiest month of the year, and two people from my team left at the start of the month.  I get home and am a dead thing, too tired to move or think.  This on top of having to look for a place and move.  It doesn’t stop there, because next week the Fall semester starts, which is another busy time at work!  This ‘day job I can stand’ has turned into what every day job I’ve ever had has been: soul-crushing.

There.  That said, I, like thousands of years of Christian peasants, am enduring the hardships of the present in hope of future pleasures.  (I should point out that I am not a Christian peasant.)  I have made a solemn vow to myself that by this month next year, I will be ready to quit full time day jobs forever and be supported solely by creative work.  It’s a tall order for 12 months, coming off of years of creative paralysis, but not impossible.

To jump-start me from the scattered stories and sketches that I do now to producing finished work, I will write two novels by the end of the year.  September and October I’ll be writing a zombie novel, and if it doesn’t suck I’ll be submitting it for publication.  Then in November, I’ll participate in NaNoWriMo, probably fleshing out a sci-fi short I wrote this past weekend.  Whether I deem them worthy of submission or not, I will start and finish in the time specified.

Then in December I’ll take it easy a bit, and begin prep work for a webcomic opus I’ve had brewing in my head for awhile.  In January I’ll do a shorter piece to practice, a webcomic I’ll update every weekday in January based on a fragment I sketched out last year (which is indebted to Peter Blegvad’s Leviathan, although it is nothing like it, and an abandoned storefront I liked walking by in Berkeley.)

This implies that during January I’ll be in the process of rebuilding my comic/art site (currently down) to prepare for the webcomic I’ll start in Feb/March (depending on website stuff) which I’ll update two times a week (maybe more once it gets rolling).  FOREVER.

All this is assuming that I have no major impactful life changes and do not win the lottery, in which case all of these things will still happen, but the schedule will get wonky due to my touring the world in luxury.

Let me know if you want to help edit some novels, build a website about my work, or support me financially for years.  Should I win the lottery and am able to take companions on my travels around the world, I’ll let you know.

Desert Island? More like a pirate oasis!

One of my favorite folks from art school has opened a wonderful store full of art books, prints, graphic novels, indie comics, zines, selected print books, magazines, and all other kinds of goodness.  It’s called Desert Island, and it’s off the Metropolitan G or Lorimer L stops here in Brooklyn.  You should go, now!  It’s the bees knees.  I expected to find places like this everywhere when I moved to NYC, and was sadly disappointed when there were none.  Well now there is!

He also has signings/parties with different authors and artists – the schedule, address, and other info is on the website at the link above.

I am in no way associated with the place (except that I will now visit and buy things there), and Gabe didn’t ask me to advertise, but I think the store is so rad that I wanted to say something.

I got a Harvey Kurtzman book I’ve been looking for, and Bill Daniel’s Mostly True, both of which I really look forward to scoping – it’s so satisfying to buy books like this in person, to peruse before you buy and talk about the artist with someone who knows.

I know I linked to places where you can buy those books online, but you should go buy them in person.  Talk to Gabe, too – he’s good people.  I truly believe we should support indie brick-and-mortar bookshops, as the chains are all going bankrupt and OMG HOW WILL YOU GET YOUR ART BOOKS WHEN SNAKE PLISKEN BLOWS THE POWER GRID AND THE INTERNET IS HISTORY!?!?!?!?!?

Go see Sink Sank Sunk tomorrow night at the Transformer Gallery

My pal and esteemed artist D. Billy has a great solo show opening tomorrow night at the Transformer Gallery in Washington, DC.  Sink Sank Sunk look to be a lot of fun, and I hear there’s a lot of interest in buying pieces; his art is a joy to look at and you should get there early and lay your money down.  I’ve seen most of the pieces in his studio, and I would have bought most of them if I had the money.

(link to PDF of press release)

BBC Documentary and Interview With Francis Bacon

Check out this 1985 Doc on and interview with my (sometimes) favorite dead British painter, Francis Bacon. It can get a bit painful at times, but it’s worth the watch.

http://www.ubu.com/film/bacon.html

Archy & Mehitabel by Don Marquis

…and now a quote from the only book I own two copies of on purpose, eponymous with the post title.